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Sweat dripped down Aynslee Smith’s back. It started as a small drop and gradually slid down her back, leaving a trail of dirt and salt behind. Her whole back was coated in these trails, making it moist and disgusting. Her shirt clung to her awkwardly as she bent down placing one palm on the hot earth.

In her other hand she held a tiny rosemary bush. As she gently placed the delicate plant in the small hole she had dug, she forgot all about sweat trails on her back and the clinginess of her shirt. Aynslee loved plants. They were her passion.

She loved the feel of the damp earth between her fingers as she created an indent in it. She loved the softness and delicateness of a young plant. She loved the energy that ricocheted off of them, making her giddy. There was nothing in the entire world like watching a plant you care for grow into a something big and beautiful

Aynslee finished patting the dirt around the herb. She stood up and brushed her dirty hands on her equally dirty thighs. Aynslee surveyed her handiwork. There were herbs: the rosemary bush she had just planted, pineapple sage, regular sage, basil, and mint and there were flowers: pansies, petunias, marigolds, zinnias, Black-eyed Susans and dahlias. Arranged in a bed of mulch, it was a perfect blend of flowers and herbs. Exactly what the Taylors wanted.

Aynslee pulled her wand out and flicked her wrist slightly to the right. A gentle rush of water flowed out, creating pools at the base of each plant under her direction.

Unknown to Aynslee, Mrs. Marsha Taylor had exited her house and come to see Aynslee’s progress. “It’s beautiful.”

Aynslee jumped a foot backwards, nearly landing on her zinnias. “Oh, gosh, I didn’t see you,” she said wiping her hand across her forehead, to keep the sweat and sunscreen mix from burning her eyes. ”So, you like it?” She gestured behind her to the garden.

“I love it. It really adds to the house.” Marsha gushed. She and her husband had recently moved to Maryland and had been taken with all the gardens. In their search for a gardener, they’d found Aynslee Smith. She was renowned gardener in the area, who also happened to be a witch, like them. “Would you like some lemonade?” asked Marsha, inviting Aynslee in.

“Oh! Umm... no thanks, Marsha, it was nice of you to offer though. I should really be going.”

“Well, if you’re sure...”

“I am.”

“Thanks again for the wonderful job you’ve done. Are you coming back tomorrow?” asked Marsha.

“Yes, I will be here everyday this week,” replied Aynslee as she eyed the garden.

“Great! See you, then.” Marsha left the front yard and re-entered her house.

Aynslee glanced back to the garden. On of her dahlia’s had a wilting flower. She whipped out her wand and tapped the flower gently. It instantly regained its full glory. Satisfied, Aynslee stowed her wand and Disapparated.

Dean Thomas sighed and pushed himself back from his drawing board with a sigh, tucking his pencil behind his ear for safekeeping.

Tilting his head slightly, he slid the parallel rule to the top of the board out of the way and stared at the front elevation spread out before him through narrowed eyes. It was ridiculous really, he knew, obsessing over such a simple thing as a balcony, when he still had the side elevations and third floor plan to finish.

Perhaps if he just looked at it on the second floor plans, he could… No, he stopped the thought there. The balcony was fine as it was; he was just being a perfectionist.

Architecture was finicky enough at the best of times, and since magic allowed him to break the laws of physics with impunity, there were just many options available. Dean often found himself wondering if many of the details he added to his buildings were really necessary or merely there because they could be. Despite thirty years now in the magical world, there was still a little of the wide-eyed child in him, who had first discovered magic with guileless wonder and wanted to use it for anything and everything.

Sometimes it felt like cheating to him, though. He’d won a Muggle award once for one of his buildings. He’d been proud of that particular design, but the award was gathering dust in the corner of his attic. He didn’t feel like he’d earned it somehow. The committee had claimed to be impressed by the structural ingenuity that the building required as, logically, it ought not to be able to bear its own weight, but Dean knew that there was no challenge to doing the ‘impossible’ with the aid of magic.

He sighed again and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. No, he definitely didn’t like that balcony. He picked up a razor blade and leant over to scratch out the offending lines. It would be quicker with magic of course, but if he was going to cheat on the result, he would at least go through the process properly.

Name: GonzHouse: HufflepuffTitle: The Man With No NameWarnings: NoneWords: 435

He was the man with no name, known only to the more seedy side of Wizarding World and, of course, to those who needed his services. The woman standing before him one of the latter, and he moved quickly to cut off a story he had heard many times before.

“You don’t trust the Ministry, I see?”

“My brother didn’t just drop dead for no reason,” she stated passionately. “I don’t care what the Aurors say.”

The man studied the woman more closely. She was just like all the others: grief-stricken, desperate, and beyond caring about the legality of her actions. He wouldn’t be surprised if she turned up in Azkaban for murder or attempted murder in the next month, but that wasn’t his business. His business was determining how this woman’s brother had died.

That is if he took the job.

Fingering the stolen Time-Turner in his pocket, the man considered the job being offered. It was a job that he never would have needed to do if the Ministry still believed in a thing called justice. He had been a fool back in his Hogwarts days, when he believed that by joining the Ministry he would join a force for good in the world. He had quickly discovered the truth and left, but not before taking the means in which he now earned his living from them.

He decided. “I can’t change the past. I can only watch.”

Her eyes hardened as she said, “I understand.”

There, the pact was sealed. He would go back in time and, once again, watch silently under the safety of an Invisibility Cloak as another person was murdered before his eyes.
It wasn’t pleasant work, and it wasn’t legal, but as long as the Ministry failed to live up to its duties it was necessary work, his work; for he investigated the crimes that people wanted to remain secret.

There was nothing more to say; so the man with no name left the woman alone and disappeared into the darkness of night and the depths of time.

“Morning, Mr. Doyle. Yes, here they are,” said Jenna handing Doyle some letters, “Also, Mr. Potter’s secretary told me over Floo that he was interested in hiring you as the planner for his new house.”

“You mean the famous Harry Potter? Wow! I must be getting famous!” exclaimed Mr. Doyle almost jumping with joy.

“Oh, Mr. Doyle, you know that you are famous and how much your work is appreciated.”

As a reply to this, Doyle just smiled brightly and went to his office.

Mr. Andrew Doyle was a fifty-year-old wizard. He was a son of an architect, and was shocked to find that very few wizards used help to plan their houses, doing it on their own. Looking at some of friends’ houses, he knew what exactly the wizarding world was lacking. Inheriting his father’s talent of designing beautiful and well-planned buildings, he decided this was the job for him.

It came as a surprise to him when his business was an instant success. He thought that if wizards needed architects so badly, somebody must have thought of it before him. But as no one had, his work became famous and so did he.

*******

Almost immediately after sitting on his desk in his office, Doyle heard someone knock on the door. Knowing very well that it couldn’t be anybody other than Jenna, he asked her to come inside.

“Mr. Doyle, Ms. McGonagall has arrived for her meeting with you to discuss that incident at Hogwarts.”

“Good Morning, Mr. Doyle,” said McGonagall in her usual business-like voice taking a seat. “As I told your secretary over Floo earlier, there seems to be some problem with one of the corridors you planned for Hogwarts after the War.”

“Yes, Jenna informed me. Can you please explain what exactly the problem is? To be honest, I have never had a complaint before, so I’m not quite sure what could have happened,” said Doyle seriously.

“The seventh-floor corridor of the East Tower has broken down; the walls are shattered and the sate of the ceiling is almost like it was never present,” reported McGonagall grimly.

“Oh, Merlin! How did this happen? I assure you that my walls could never break down by themselves!” responded Doyle clearly shocked.

“Well, one of our not-so-sincere students, decided to bomb down the seventh-floor corridor, thinking that it would be an amusing joke-” started McGonagall hesitantly when she was cut by Doyle who was laughing outrageously.

“I can assure you that the student was punished for his actions and we will try our best to stop this from happening again,” continued McGonagall disapprovingly.

“May I know the name of the student who did this?” asked Doyle when he finally stopped laughing.

On hearing the answer, Doyle knew that he had to build the walls of Potter's house really strong.

Hannah Abbott looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was almost two in the afternoon. She knew that the lunch rush was over so it was time to prepare for dinner. Luckily the dinner crowd wasn’t as large as lunch.

Hannah let her mind wander as she wiped down the tables. She didn’t plan on working in the Visitors Tea Room at St. Mungo’s Hospital forever. She wanted to own her own place, someplace like The Leaky Cauldron. But for now, she had to earn a living.

She took the last of the dishes into the kitchen. As she was exiting the kitchen, she heard the door open. Sighing, she looked up to greet the late lunch customer. He had his head bent, his shoulders were hunched as if he was carrying the weight of the world on them.

“Hello, what can I get for you today?” Hannah asked in her most pleasant voice.

“Umm, maybe just a cup of tea. I’m not really hungry.” the man answered as he sat at the counter.

Hannah turned and grabbed a mug, tapping it with her wand, she turned and placed the perfectly brewed cup of tea in front of him.

He looked up at her to thank her and realized who she was. At the same time, she recognized him.

“Hannah?” he questioned.

“Neville?” Hannah asked at the exact same time.

“What are you doing here?” both said once again together.

Laughing, Hannah motioned for him to speak first.

“I didn’t know you worked here.” Neville said.

“I have been here for a few months now. Why are you….” Hannah stopped suddenly as she remembered about Neville’s parents. “How are your parents?”

“The same.” Neville voice sounded small and dejected.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him. “It helps sometimes to talk.”

“I very rarely come up here when I come to see them. Gran wanted to talk to the Healers about mum and dad, so I decided to come up to get something to drink. Strange, isn’t it? I decide to come up and here you are.” Neville gave Hannah a small smile.

“How have you been? I heard you, Harry and Ron took Minister Shacklebolt up on his offer to join the Aurors.”

“Yeah, we did. It is interesting work. Listen, I better get back downstairs to Gran. Now that I know you work here, I’ll come back again. If that’s okay.” Neville’s voice shook slightly with nervousness.

“Sure, I’d love for you to come back when you have more time to talk.” Hannah smiled at him.

“Okay, see you soon, then.” with that, Neville got up and left. He pulled open the door, and stopped and looked back at Hannah. He gave her a small smile and waved.

Hannah sat there for a few moments thinking. She always liked Neville. Just perhaps this could be the start of something. Getting up, she smiled through the rest of her preparations for the dinner crowd.

Terri Black (as in Mrs Sirius {aka Padfoot} Black) Hufflepuff Head of House

Fleur sat at the table demurely tasting the chocolate cakes with the tinted frostings. Molly Weasley sat, slightly dejected as she half-heartedly tasted the same cakes. She had wanted to bake her justly famous Weasley’s Wicked Cocoa-Crème Delight, which had always been the children’s favorite for birthday celebrations, but had acquiesced on this point. Fleur had completely stolen her heart with her ministrations of Charlie during his recovery. Ginny sat between them wrinkling her nose in distaste as Fleur pooh-poohed each creation that Madam Poster sat in front of them. The Wedding of the Century must have the perfect cake, she thought.

Ginny had worked her hardest to get out of this. She had sulked her way through the other activities, trying to focus on her massive love for her brother to counteract out the heaviness of her own heart, but tasting cakes in a frothy establishment was too much to bear. She’d rather be home, alone in her room, plucking out each painful shard of Harry still embedded deep in her heart.

Madam Poster surveyed the scene, and took pity on the sweet-faced young girl. She remembered when Ginny was little, racing through town to keep up with her brothers. She had always been such a delightful child. The look on her face now was unmistakable. Many of the Bride’s parties that came to her establishment would have sulky ones at the table, but very few had faces etched in such real hurt.

Madam Poster knew such pain. She had lost her own Richard tragically early when he had been trampled during a freak dragon infestation in the wee years of the century. As she was about to bring another sample to their
table, she had a brilliant idea. She sat a piece of the cake in front of Molly and Fleur. Ginny, barely looked up from her hands neatly folded in her lap.

“Ginny, isn’t it?” The old baker said softly.

Ginny looked into the woman’s eyes and managed a smile, as she nodded her head.

“I expect you don’t remember, but when you were just a small thing, you’d run by my shop. I always thought how brave you were to keep up with all those wallopin’ big brothers of yours.”

The above were standout entries - flawless in their presentation, offering imaginative and intriguing situations. They also met submission standards for MNFF.

Gonz's entry was particularly enjoyable. Simplistically creative and succinct. Intriguing, in that, we don't know who the character is; he operates in the Wizarding underworld for the better good. We don't know who he is working for, but want to know who he is, who he is working for, why he does what he does, and what he discovers when he gets there. We see an element of the character's past: he makes wrong decisions, and tries to stick to his morals, even if his actions aren't ethically sound. There is an element of grand mystery that leads the reader on, and leaves them begging for more.

You guys did an awesome job!
Points will be posted by MQ -- keep an eye out for them
~Ebil one

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